Imposter syndrome, identity crises and how to find yourself in old stairways
Picking up on my last post about social media - specifically regarding feeling insecure about creating new writing-focused accounts because it felt self-important (and because social media might be the downfall of our society) - I thought I’d share more about the imposter syndrome I feel in various aspects of my life. This is a popular topic in self-help circles, and I don’t have any “help” to offer per se; only the promise of solidarity, and the recognition, as of late, that perhaps we all feel that way. Which means nobody really has to.
At the outset of this summer, we packed up our older two kids for a month at sleep away camp in Maine, with plans to stop and tour my alma mater, Boston University, on the way to drop them off. Nora’s a rising senior and our tactic has been to tour colleges in a practical manner when we can, tacking on our visits to existing trips, prioritizing seeing a wide range of campuses - different vibes and student body sizes, city vs. more secluded, etcetera.
(I like how the preceding paragraph makes it sounds like we are super chill, organized and knowledgeable in the preparing-to-apply-for-college space when, in reality, I can’t tell you, like, one fact about admissions percentages. What I can tell you is all about how nervous I was that our tour guide during one particular campus visit was going to fall down a flight of stairs because she resolutely committed to walking backwards the entire way; like she never turned around to see where she was going, not even once, which demonstrated so much integrity and was also very unnerving).
Visiting BU delivered a strong dose of nostalgia, as you might imagine. I made my family walk past Fenway Park to my freshman dorm, then over to Beacon Street to the apartment building where I lived for my junior and senior year with friends. I pointed out where PJ Kilroy’s used to be, a dive bar where we got beer by the pitcher and I played “A Message to You, Rudy” by The Specials on the jukebox every time I was there.
But while sitting through the BU information session, designed to inform the large, visiting crowd just how dynamic this university was, and the subsequent tour with an enthusiastic student studying political affairs, I was struck by a strange thought: “I went here. But did I really go here?” Like, did I take advantage of everything this place had to offer? And have I, all these years later, made the most of what was, according to the stats delivered in rapid-fire succession, an undeniably awesome education?
Even considering some caveats - that I graduated a long time ago, when BU was a different place and easier (if maybe not easy) to get into - it was, undeniably, that: an exciting, worthwhile place to be and learn.
When we finally got to the College of Arts and Sciences where, I, an English major and Philosophy minor (by determined choice, and not because I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life, which such a combination might cause one to assume) took nearly all my classes, I was reminded with a jolt: oh, I absolutely went here. I read Yeats in an Irish literature course and took my oral final exam on Nietzsche in my ultra-serious professor’s book-filled office. I marched up and down this sunlit stairway, drank beers in the BU pub in the bottom of the “castle” and wrote a very long paper on the incomparable mental growth that only comes from being alone (notable, as I can now say, as a fully-formed adult that my best thoughts come from engaging with others) for a beloved class taught by a semi-grumpy but also beloved professor that required the writing of a personal manifesto. He, famously, recorded his criticism and commentary by audio tape, then presented it to his awed and fearful students.
It took going back there and walking those halls, annoying tapping Nora on the shoulder more than once, and saying, “this is where I went,” to really remember and - more importantly - to connect that young student to the person I am today. The person who sometimes questions her very identify and choices which is an odd thing to do and yet, something I feel (maybe I’m wrong? tell me if I’m wrong?) a lot of us do anyway.
I’ve discussed how I’ve had a hard time calling myself a writer despite the fact that I’ve done it as an actual job. And I have a hard time calling myself a runner, even though not a week goes by that I don’t head out for a few miles; I’ve run one marathon and several halves and yet still think to myself, well, there are runners who are real runners. And then there is me.
I often think - and this one really bothers me - that, of the two of us, my husband is the one who’s “into music,” and I’m simply a passive observer, learning about new bands by proxy. When the truth is that I was browsing the shelves of Olsson’s Books and Records in Alexandria, Virginia borderline obsessively as a teenager, and later did the same at Boston’s Mass. Ave./Newbury St. Tower Records (another site, now the home of various, far less epic business and retail shops, that I eagerly showed my children on our walk through the city). I talked indie bands at 90s parties to a near-embarrassing degree.
I don’t know why I think like this; can’t provide evidence for these questionable takes. My best explanation is that it’s simply human nature to worry that everyone besides you knows what they are doing.
Going back BU was a portal to my old self and a reminder for my current one: a person who doesn’t - ever since having children threw me off course in terms of time available for leisure activities - consider herself an avid reader despite the fact that she determinedly chose an academic path in college that required near constant reading; a person who stayed up all night reading John Steinbeck’s “East of Eden” in high school (of all things); who underlined sections of Sir Philip Sidney’s “Astrophil and Stella” so hard in ballpoint pen that she nearly tore the delicate pages of her Norton Anthology.
The reminder goes like: you can dig into the reserves of that old self anytime you need, you can inhabit them now. They can serve as the sturdy backdrop for something new (you can do something new, do it well, anytime you want!)
It’s a lofty line of thinking, I know, but it turns out I’m responsive to it (who would have thought that a proud English Major, Philosophy Minor would be receptive to lofty things?)
Which is why, while out running four miles the other morning, getting ready for the upcoming New Haven 20k Road Race this Labor Day - so sweaty with the humidity, running at my normal, never-fast pace - I saw another woman running the opposite way and thought, “she looks very real,” but didn’t immediately accept the statement like I normally would. I thought to myself, “And I wonder how I look to her?” A runner, after all, since high school cross country, who took the hobby to the Charles River Esplanade in Boston; to the suburban streets with a jogging stroller; to the orthopedist and the physical therapist. A personal history that answers the question, “Wait am I really?” with “Yes.”